A weekend in Dartmoor

This weekend a few of the lads who were in Corsica went to Devon to meet up with Matt and Ronan, the two Irish guys we met whilst we were out there. The plan was for Max and I to head down Thursday morning to meet the two of them at the Dart to run the Upper, and Dave, Stu and Duncan would come on Friday.

Packed and ready to go, Max and I drove down to the Upper get off from Cardiff. Meeting Ronan and Matt after they had done a cheeky warm up on the Loop, we did the shuttle and put on at the top of the Upper (which was a really nice level - high side of medium). The whole river was awesome, bumpy and full of stoppers, we were having a cracking time.

Cheeky Waves

Getting to Euthanasia, one of the crux sections, we had a look. Deliberation ensued, and after a long hard think about how hard a spanking we were after, we all walked round, justifying the move as a 'not wanting a good beating on the first day'. Running down to 'Surprize Surprize' we jumped out and again had a long think. Ronan took a walk round, Matt and I took the chicken shoot whilst Max attempted a snazzy move, which eventually failed, but looked good whilst he did it.

Max on Surprize Surprize

The river was awesome, what a start to the weekend. Now all we needed was the rain to keep coming and for the rivers to stay up. But with the luck of the Irish on our side, how could this not happen?

Ronan running the guts

The evening was spent in a pub for food, where we had a few drinks and talked through subjects that wouldn't even get on Paris Hilton's home movies!!! We headed back to the place we were staying, which was a nice house near Ivybridge, and continued with the beers whilst watching the Bad Grandpa Jackass movie (which was hilarious).

The next morning was met with sore heads, and no water! Apparently Ronan and Matt were hoarding all of the luck and not giving it to the collective for the good of kayaking. Max rang Stu and Duncan to say meet up at the Plym. We did this, and it looked low. However optimism prevailed and we jumped onto what was a scrape-y river.

Quality River Banter

With this travesty over, but still the majority of the day left, we thought the Dart still may have something in to give Stu and Duncan a run. However arriving at Dartmeet it was obviously not the case, so we sacked that off and headed back to the house.

Tree ridden scrape-y-ness

The house had a log burner, and on return we decided to get the thing going. Due to the manliness of Ronan and myself, we had this thing blazing and within minutes it was kicking out as much heat as the two of us cause in the undergarments of any woman we meet. The room was warm, and went well with our Bacon and Sausage sandwiches that yours truely made! We put on a film called 'Hobo with a Shotgun', which was as classy as it sounds. After this enthraling tale of a hobo that cleans up the mean streets of some scumbag Canadian town with a hooker, we went to the pub for another meal. I had a mixed grill that was amazing, and the rest of the table was also filled with meat. We also met Dave here (of MadeAlmostEntirleyOutOfSteel fame). Following the meal we headed back to the house for more heat. A film by Nicolas Cage, called Drive Angry, went on, as well as a lot of wood into the burner. The film was as expected, pants but good. However the heat in the room was close to unbearable, and the majority of the people in it had got down to their underpants. This seemed fine at the time of drunkenness, but the reality of 6 sweaty men, sitting on two small sofas, just in their pants was actually rather telling of how close two groups of people, who met for a week in Corsica, had become. The night ended in a requirement to go to bed due to severe dehydration, not caused by alcohol alone.

The next day (Saturday) we headed to the Lyn hoping for water. The internet had told us it was low (as well as everything else), and on arrival we validated this. A long walk down the side of the river to further clarify the lack of water, we sacked off the idea of kayaking. A quick drive down to Lynmouth to have lunch and watch the rugby and the weekend was over. A good laugh, which set us up for a potential trip to Italy in May. Good times had by all.